Five minutes with Vivienne Merito – Director Marketing and Student Attraction

Vivienne Merito returned to Unitec this year after a few years away, to take up the role of Director Marketing and Student Attraction. She fills us in on how working here fits with her values and her plans for the coming months.

Tell us about your background and why this role appealed…

I’ve worked in Marketing and Communications for 20 years, for many corporate and community organisations. Unitec has had a special place in my heart since working here as my first job after having my baby in 2012.

While I was here I discovered more about my whakapapa, which I’d never really explored before. I’m Ngāti Awa so am a direct descendent of Wairaka! I grew up in Mt Roskill but didn’t click that the maunga Owairaka was named after Wairaka until I learnt about it here. My son was at the Puna Reo onsite (Te Reo Māori immersion daycare) and they did weekly visits to Te Waiunuroa o Wairaka (the spring), while I worked here in Communications and then Marketing – it was a lovely, slow entrance back to work and a special time for me.

I have a real belief in Unitec and what we do. In my previous role I worked in the Māori and Pacific space; I loved the staff, students and graduates that we worked with. It’s a priority for me to support these communities.

I left Unitec in 2015 to work at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. I have a lot of love for the Wānanga – it’s an organisation that is led by a strong kaupapa (reason for being). You know unreservedly that everyone is there for same reason and it’s inspiring that the uptake of te reo and tikanga Māori is everywhere. A lot of people don’t know that it’s the second largest tertiary organisation in New Zealand – it’s humbling to go to an institution that is represented in every community across the country and is so big  but no one realises it!

When I saw this role , I loved that a mainstream marketing role incorporated a focus on Te Noho Kotahitanga, along with Māori and Pacific success, and I thought ‘wow, something is going on at Unitec!’.

I’ve also had experience in the financial services sector with a local and international agent network, so international marketing and the agent approach is very familiar. When I  saw that our international recruitment team was now included as part of the Marketing team, it looked like my dream role, bringing together all the things I’ve loved in my career so far.

What have you observed in the first few months you’ve been back here?

The most significant thing I’ve observed is the passion of the Executive Leadership Team. It’s one of the most transparent, upfront, vision-guided, kaupapa-driven leadership teams I’ve ever worked with. I feel heard and supported as a manager and I understand where they’re going. I think that reflects how most people are feeling and it’s great to see the student and staff survey results improving – Unitec is on the right track and it really fits with my values.

With the Leadership Team’s guidance and with the staff and students here we have something unique to offer.

What are some of the opportunities and challenges in your role and in Unitec’s marketing?

We have a vibrant and diverse team that while in good shape, has had to navigate the challenge of bringing together teams who had never worked together before, the loss of other experienced team members and a change in focus from the entire student journey to just the “find ‘em” space i.e. student attraction. It’s a team that has shown amazing resilience, like many across Unitec. We’ve had to learn some things from scratch, but I’m really loving it. The team is starting to find their straps. We want to be more student focused – and to succeed we need to figure out how to keep students at core, while also being mindful of the needs of Schools, internal partners, other stakeholders and community.

We have wonderful data insights to help shape where we’re going – it’s a real opportunity. There are still some information gaps though and some of the findings have challenged our thinking about who we should be targeting and how we should be engaging.

Our brand health is a big focus for me too. A brand is not just a logo and pictures – it’s what people say, think, and feel about an organisation.

I’m using the whare tapa whā model to assess and work on our brand health. This model uses four cornerstones (or sides of the whare):

Taha Tinana: body. This refers to our physical place. We have a campus rich in history and cultural significance and we are firmly located in the West.

Taha Wairua: spirit. Our wairua includes our values, whakapapa and living Te Noho Kotahitanga.

Taha Whānau: family. Our staff, our students and our communities – the way we connect, listen and inspire.

Taha Hinengaro: mind: our unique and valuable approach to teaching and learning.

This model gives a wider view of our brand and it’ll help us to bring both mind and heart to our brand.

What are your priorities and focus for the rest of this year?

My biggest priority is getting my team singing and in achieving that, we’ll be working on our targets of bringing students in and making sure they have a great first experience here – while also continuing to build on our brand health and reputation.

That’s why I love the draft Renewal Strategy and the symbolism of the flax with ‘manaakitia te rito’. From a brand perspective it’s symbolised in our logo – which is essentially ‘Te Rito’ the young leaf at the heart of the flax bush i.e. the student, and the parents (our Schools and lecturers) with us as support services wrapping around them both. Through the NPS surveys we know that the quality of the teaching is everything, so a big part of our job as Marketing is to support the Schools. We also know people don’t come to Unitec because of our ‘name’, they come because we can help them get to a specific destination whether it’s to be a vet nurse, professional accountant, dancer, builder, architect or simply to help others. That’s our focus when we think of our proposition in the market.

Marketing used to follow the whole student journey, seeing them through recruitment, retention, student communication and graduation. We’re only bringing them to the door now – we’re the ‘find em’ team, no longer the ‘keep em’ team. Over the last few months we’ve been working on what that looks like and now we’re starting to engage with rest of Unitec so we can stick to that role while still providing support to the Schools and our wider business partners.

Another big focus is our priority group strategies. To achieve parity, we need to see a step change. We’ll be working on what that looks like for marketing over next six months.

What do you get up to outside of work?

My son Toi is seven so my spare time is focused on him. I like to encourage him to get outside as much as possible so we go biking, walking and skiing when we can.

A major benefit of being in Auckland is that I’m close to family – my sister is here and mum is in Whangārei so I see them when I can. I’m also hoping to visit Mataatua Marae in Māngere a bit more, to keep connected with my whānau and whakapapa.

I’ve been doing the FitSmith programme here in the mornings and Toi comes along with me. It’s been amazing – just what I needed to take me into another space after a period of neglecting the ‘Taha Tinana – Physical Health’ side of the Whare Tapa Whā. It’s for all levels of fitness and uses your own body weight and it’s led by Ciarin Smith in my team, so there’s even more incentive.

At some stage I’d like to take Toi back to Papua New Guinea, where I lived as a child with my mum and sister. Mum was a lecturer at the teacher’s college in Mt Hagen and then we moved to a very isolated place with no electricity. In some of the places we visited, she was the first white woman they’d ever seen. We grew our own food and had pigs, ducks and chickens and mum taught the locals how to sew. It was a wonderful time in my life and I’d love to go back, although it’s too dangerous at the moment.